MILLER, GLENN (1904-1944)

Glenn Miller

The man who would become one of America's
best-loved bandleaders was born in Clarinda,
Iowa, on March 1, 1904. Alton Glenn Miller's
homesteading parents then decided to try
their luck in Nebraska; in 1907 they packed up
their family and moved into a sod house in the
very small town of Tryon. After another move
to Missouri the family wound up in Fort Morgan,
Colorado, where Miller developed an interest
in dance band music. He was talented
enough on the trombone to support himself
in orchestras through two years at the University
of Colorado and in 1924 moved to Los
Angeles to play full time in the Ben Pollack
Orchestra.

Miller considered himself a mediocre trombone
player at best. His real ambition was to
make new arrangements of tunes others had
written and to use his arrangements to develop
a recognizable style for a band of his
own. After stints with other big names in the
1930s, including Ray Noble and the Dorsey
brothers, he set out to form the first Glenn
Miller Band. This one failed, but on his next
attempt in 1939 he landed a summer slot at the
Glen Island Casino, a big band hot spot with a
nationwide radio hookup. Within months,
Miller had a national following. Hit after hit
followed, beginning with "In the Mood" and
including the first gold record ever awarded,
for "Chattanooga Choo Choo." The band also
made two movies by 1942, giving fans in the
hinterlands a chance to see them in action.

World War II intervened, and as Miller saw
his young bandsmen joining up or being
drafted out of their chairs he wanted to do
more for his country. He pestered the army
until they gave him a captain's commission
and a fifty-member band, complete with a
string section, something his civilian band did
not include. His morale-building duties included
modernizing military music, notably
with the "Saint Louis Blues March," and making
numerous radio broadcasts and war bond
drives.

Miller lobbied hard to take his band overseas
to play for the Allied troops in Europe.
The army relented in the summer of 1944; for
the next six months the Glenn Miller Army
Air Force Band kept a relentless schedule of
base concerts and radio broadcasts in England.
Wanting to get closer to the troops who
would most enjoy the little bit of home his
music brought them, by-now-promoted Major
Miller was making plans to bring his band
to Paris when his light plane disappeared over
the English Channel on December 15, 1944.
Rumors persist that the plane was brought
down by friendly fire, most likely by bombs
jettisoned by a Royal Air Force squadron flying
above it.

The band continued without him and, after
several changes in personnel and name, still
tours today. Miller's songs are swing band
classics, and fan clubs in America and England
continue to attract new members. His signature
tune, "Moonlight Serenade," the only one
of the band's hits written by Miller, evokes the
romantic, patriotic, and musical war years yet
remains instantly recognizable today.